Just what we want

Pandemic, race war, mass unemployment, collapsing dams, vote suppression, homicide hornets...I feel like something is missing.

"So you think we can have a slightly enhanced hurricane season?  That's just what we want, that's just what we want."

Do I have to tell you?  Homeland Security and FEMA officials had to brief The Leader on the coming summer, and his response was typically inappropriate.  He did add, "Let's see, hopefully that won't be the case," but it was too late.  He takes a senile pride in being number one in coronavirus cases and covid deaths, and the Resolute desk barely conceals his arousal at the violence sweeping the country.  Putin must wish he could have found a less stupid reality TV star to do his bidding -- Mama June, say, or The Situation.

Trump's not exactly using Twitter to "glamorize violence" today, but he can't stop talking about it.  Usually he only gets this excited when Princess opens a new sweatshop in China.  He decided we need a lesson about one of the more shameful episodes in our history:  "Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey will never be mistaken for the late, great General Douglas McArthur [sic] or great fighter George Patton...Get tough and fight (and arrest the bad ones).  STRENGTH!"  True, Mayor Frey would never mount a white horse and burn an encampment of hungry veterans in violation of orders from his superior. (All right, who told Trump about the Bonus Army?  Barron?)  Even Bill Kristol thought this was nuts:  "Not to over-interpret Trump's idiocy, but the president of the United States is basically salivating at the thought of using the U.S. military in American cities."

But they are arresting the bad ones.  That's how we know that most of them are what Orval Faubus and Bull Connor used to call "outside agitators."  The governor and the public safety commissioner say eighty percent of those arrested came from outside Minnesota, and many have links to "white supremacist groups and organized crime."  Mayor Melvin Carter of St. Paul thinks they're using the murder of George Floyd "as a cover to create havoc."

Taking their cue from Trump, the police know who to go after:  the press.  Like Derek Chauvin, they aren't even a little shy about having their pictures taken.  Omar Jimenez of CNN was on the air when he and his crew were arrested; they were freed after Jeff Zucker phoned Governor Walz in a rage.  In Louisville, Kaitlin Rust was live on WAVE when a police officer began firing pepper pellets at her.  Linda Tirado, author of Hand To Mouth:  Living In Bootstrap America, was hit with a "rubber bullet" and has lost the sight in her left eye.  So buy her book now.  It's the least we can do.

Wise guys and Proud Boys don't come to town to steal televisions and break windows.  You can be sure their agenda is more Reichstag Fire, creating the conditions for some kind of "national emergency" proclamation involving martial law.  No big, just enough to cancel the elections Trump increasingly dreads and intern a few thousand "troublemakers."  I hope I'm wrong, but this is uncharted territory.  I wonder if our First Amendment is strong enough to stand up to their Second.